Virgin in historic biofuel flight: babassu and coconut oil fuel, produced by cooperative of small farmers
A historic flight took off from London to Amsterdam today: a jumbo-jet testing one engine with biofuel made from babassu and coconut oil. The flight demonstrated that biofuels can power commercial passenger jets. It also shows the world's poor - 75 percent of who are farmers - can begin to hope to get out of poverty, as the expanding biofuel markets now offer major opportunities for their development.
The biofuel tested in Virgin Atlantic's Boeing 747, based on babassu palm nut oil, was obtained from cooperatives in Brazil who make a living from the extraction. The father of Brazil's bio-jet fuel, Expedito Parente, with who Boeing and Virgin have collaborated, has meanwhile launched a major initiative to alleviate poverty amongst Brazilian forest communities, based on harvesting the babassu palm which grows in the wild on 18 million hectares (previous post).
Science shows there is a very large potential for the production of sustainable biofuels that reduce emissions. There are vast stretches of unused, low value, non-forest land, especially in developing countries. This land base is estimated to be around 1.5 billion hectares. The biofuel potential based on this is estimated to be around 1550Ej by 2050, more than 6 times the world's current total oil consumption. This amount can be met while securing all food, fiber, forest products and fodder needs of growing populations, and without deforestation.
The addition of the aviation sector means that all transport sectors can now be serviced by biofuels. A major market that can benefit the planet and the world's poor now opens. Food and agriculture experts say biofuels can boost food security amongst the world's poor, because rural populations will obtain additional income and much needed investments in land and rural development will at last be made (previous post).
The Virgin Atlantic Boeing Co. 747-400, which took off from London and landed at Amsterdam, had one unmodified engine running on a mixture of about 25 percent biofuel and the rest standard jet kerosene, Branson said today at a Heathrow airport news conference.
The flight, without passengers, is part of a joint project between the London-based airline, Boeing and enginemaker General Electric Co. Airlines and aircraft makers are racing to develop a viable alternative to jet fuel as the price of oil rises and aviation is increasingly blamed for contributing to global warming.
The information gleaned from today's test flight will be evaluated by Virgin, Boeing and GE. After the flight, Chicago- based Boeing will ask other carriers to do tests, which may lead to biofuel-powered commercial flights within five years, according to Billy Glover, Virgin's environment director:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: biodiesel :: coconut :: babassu :: poverty alleviation :: aviation :: Virgin ::
Virgin and GE tested a number of different biofuels produced by Seattle-based Imperium Renewables Inc. before choosing coconut and babassu because they were suitable in initial tests and won't compete with staple food supplies or cause deforestation, the airline said. Babassu nuts are harvested from palms by local workers from the Amazonian rainforest.
Biofuels are not a panacea, there are a whole load of issues, said John Strickland, director of London-based aviation specialist JLS Consulting. Some have the issue of substituting food crops and they don't necessarily produce enough, in terms of volume, to replace kerosene.
Today's flight was approved by the U.K.'s Civil Aviation Authority. The plane used the biofuel in only one engine, with a separate tank. The aircraft will now go into maintenance and the engine will be examined.
The plane landed at Amsterdam Schiphol airport after reaching a planned maximum altitude of 25,000 feet, Virgin said today. No other details about the flight were released.
Fuel accounts for 30 to 50 percent of airlines' operating costs, and aviation contributes about 2 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. That's expected to rise to 3 percent by 2050, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
More details about this historic flight will be posted when available.
References:
Bloomberg: Virgin Flies 747 on Biofuel From Coconuts, Babassu - February 24, 2008.
Reuters: Amazon nuts help power first biofuel airline flight - February 24, 2008.
Biopact: Father of bio-jet fuel launches biofuel cooperatives in Brazil to reduce poverty - May 25, 2007
Article continues
The biofuel tested in Virgin Atlantic's Boeing 747, based on babassu palm nut oil, was obtained from cooperatives in Brazil who make a living from the extraction. The father of Brazil's bio-jet fuel, Expedito Parente, with who Boeing and Virgin have collaborated, has meanwhile launched a major initiative to alleviate poverty amongst Brazilian forest communities, based on harvesting the babassu palm which grows in the wild on 18 million hectares (previous post).
Science shows there is a very large potential for the production of sustainable biofuels that reduce emissions. There are vast stretches of unused, low value, non-forest land, especially in developing countries. This land base is estimated to be around 1.5 billion hectares. The biofuel potential based on this is estimated to be around 1550Ej by 2050, more than 6 times the world's current total oil consumption. This amount can be met while securing all food, fiber, forest products and fodder needs of growing populations, and without deforestation.
The addition of the aviation sector means that all transport sectors can now be serviced by biofuels. A major market that can benefit the planet and the world's poor now opens. Food and agriculture experts say biofuels can boost food security amongst the world's poor, because rural populations will obtain additional income and much needed investments in land and rural development will at last be made (previous post).
The Virgin Atlantic Boeing Co. 747-400, which took off from London and landed at Amsterdam, had one unmodified engine running on a mixture of about 25 percent biofuel and the rest standard jet kerosene, Branson said today at a Heathrow airport news conference.
The flight, without passengers, is part of a joint project between the London-based airline, Boeing and enginemaker General Electric Co. Airlines and aircraft makers are racing to develop a viable alternative to jet fuel as the price of oil rises and aviation is increasingly blamed for contributing to global warming.
The information gleaned from today's test flight will be evaluated by Virgin, Boeing and GE. After the flight, Chicago- based Boeing will ask other carriers to do tests, which may lead to biofuel-powered commercial flights within five years, according to Billy Glover, Virgin's environment director:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: biodiesel :: coconut :: babassu :: poverty alleviation :: aviation :: Virgin ::
Virgin and GE tested a number of different biofuels produced by Seattle-based Imperium Renewables Inc. before choosing coconut and babassu because they were suitable in initial tests and won't compete with staple food supplies or cause deforestation, the airline said. Babassu nuts are harvested from palms by local workers from the Amazonian rainforest.
Biofuels are not a panacea, there are a whole load of issues, said John Strickland, director of London-based aviation specialist JLS Consulting. Some have the issue of substituting food crops and they don't necessarily produce enough, in terms of volume, to replace kerosene.
Today's flight was approved by the U.K.'s Civil Aviation Authority. The plane used the biofuel in only one engine, with a separate tank. The aircraft will now go into maintenance and the engine will be examined.
The plane landed at Amsterdam Schiphol airport after reaching a planned maximum altitude of 25,000 feet, Virgin said today. No other details about the flight were released.
Fuel accounts for 30 to 50 percent of airlines' operating costs, and aviation contributes about 2 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. That's expected to rise to 3 percent by 2050, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
More details about this historic flight will be posted when available.
References:
Bloomberg: Virgin Flies 747 on Biofuel From Coconuts, Babassu - February 24, 2008.
Reuters: Amazon nuts help power first biofuel airline flight - February 24, 2008.
Biopact: Father of bio-jet fuel launches biofuel cooperatives in Brazil to reduce poverty - May 25, 2007
Article continues
Sunday, February 24, 2008
First study shows what large-scale farmers think of GM crops
With the advent of the worldwide transition to bioenergy, GM energy crops are set to add to the controversy. New transgenic crops have already been designed, such as trees that store up to 30 percent more carbon dioxide, crops that grow less lignin and more cellulose suitable for bioproducts, or that create their own bioconversion enzymes as they grow. Biopact takes a neutral stance on this matter, as we see both major advantages as well as risks. However, it is important to note that scientific projections show there is enough potential land to grow a large amount of biomass (1550 Exajoules by 2050, or six times the world's current oil consumption) while leaving enough room for food, fodder and fiber production, without there being a real need for GM crops.
Scientists in general tend to be rational about transgenic crops, with many seeing (and finding) potential advantages outweighing risks. A first of a kind, large meta-analysis recently came to this conclusion (previous post). However, other segments of society are more skeptical. For this reason there has been a substantial amount of social research into the public perception of GM crops, as well as into the views of NGOs, governments, and small farmers in the developing world (an example of an ethnographic study, here).
But now, for the first time, research funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) reveals what the big, large-scale commodity farmers themselves think of GM plants. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, they are strongly upbeat about these crops. A group at the Open University, led by Professor Andy Lane, has taken the first systematic look at what large farmers – not those mainly involved in organic growing - think about transgenic plants, such as corn, soy or cotton, for which a number of GM variants exist. This is the first proper look at the attitudes of the people who would actually grow GM crops, if given the opportunity.
Lane and his colleagues found that both farmers who have been involved in GM crop trials and those who have not, regard GM as a simple extension of previous plant breeding techniques, such as those which have produced today’s established crop types. They regard GM crops as an innovation which they would assess on its merits.
Their real interest is in how GM crops would work in practice and whether they can contribute to the profitability of their farms. The research suggests that these farmers do not think that GM raises any issues of principle, or that it is a matter of right or wrong. They are merely pragmatic about the crops: are they easy to manage, do they carry concrete risks to farm operations, and most importantly, do they offer profitable opportunities or not?
(Note: very recently published (11 February) multi-year research found that in the case of GM cotton - planted on almost 93% of U.S. cotton acres in 2007 - the answer to this last question is actually a resounding "no"; more here):
energy :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: agriculture :: genetically modified crops :: transgenic :: biotechnology :: precautionary principle :: argicultural economics :: commodities :: sustainability ::
Notwithstanding these recent findings, the Open University team found that a particular advantage of GM - as seen by farmers - is its potential to allow growers to plant crops with high yields while using less herbicide. This involves new management practices. Lane and his colleagues found that farmers who have been involved in the Farm-Scale Evaluations to assess GM in action have found GM crops feasible to grow.
The researchers also looked at how farmers learn about new developments such as GM. They found that most of the learning farmers do is informal, for example by experimentation or from their networks, which are made up from a wide range of people not necessarily just farmers. These networks can extend over long geographical distances.
Many farmers disapprove of past cuts in public funding for agricultural advisory services. It is now complicated and expensive for farmers to get good advice. They also feel that there is poor communication between farmers and people involved in agricultural policy, and between farmers and relevant scientific research.
The research project ‘Farmers Understandings of GM crops within local communities’ was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council from the ESRC Science in Society Programme. Professor Andy Lane and Dr Sue Oreszczyn work at the Department of Development Policy and Practice, Open University.
The project used a relationship-building approach that involved farmers as participants in the research. It used discussion and mapping techniques to discover and categorise farmers’ views, and relied on telephone and face to face meetings as well as a workshop with farmers and other influential members of the farmers networks. In total 30 farmers in the east and west of England and 22 members of their networks were involved in the study in various ways.
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training relating to social and economic issues. It supports independent, high quality research relevant to business, the public sector and voluntary organisations. The ESRC’s planned total expenditure in 2007 - 08 is £181 million. At any one time the ESRC supports over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions and research policy institutes.
References:
ESRC: What farmers think about GM crops - February 24, 2008.
Eurekalert: Is transgenic cotton more profitable? - February 11, 2008.
Biopact: Celebrity spotting: Marc Van Montagu and GM energy crops - July 05, 2007
Biopact: CGIAR developing climate-resilient crops to beat global warming - December 05, 2006
Biopact: Anthropological study explores the effects of genetically modified crops on developing countries - January 27, 2007
Biopact: Scientists: GM crops can play role in sustainable agriculture - June 10, 2007
Article continues
posted by Biopact team at 8:53 PM 1 comments links to this post